NICU Preemies Need More Loving Touch, Less Pain

It is very important that premature babies being cared for in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU) receive plenty of caring and supportive touch experiences and as few painful procedures as possible, as these events can significantly impact brain development, according to new research published in the journal Current Biology.

Disruptions in the normal development of the somatosensory system — a baby’s first sensory system that perceives temperature, the body’s position in space, movement, and all degrees of touch, from the lightest to most painful — can affect the child’s socio-emotional development.

Healthy sensory processing allows young children to learn from their experiences, and provides the foundation for developing higher-level perceptual and cognitive abilities.

“Parents should know that every minute they hold their baby counts,” says first author Nathalie Maitre, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of Pediatrics, medical director of the NICU Follow-up Program and a principal investigator in the Center for Perinatal Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

“Touch is a critical building block of infant learning,” says Maitre, adjunct professor of Hearing and Speech Sciences and former assistant professor of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt. “It helps babies learn how to move their bodies, how to discover the world around them and how to communicate with their families.”

The findings show that exposure to painful procedures can impact brain development even when sedatives and analgesics are used.

“Until new research can prove which medications work at preventing these changes in brain function, we need to focus on effective non-pharmacological alternatives,” said Mark Wallace, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School at Vanderbilt and the study’s co-senior author with Micah Murray, Ph.D., of the University of Lausanne.

Wallace says that “it is absolutely essential to minimize exposure to painful procedures that infants can often experience during hospitalizations.”

For the study, the researchers compared the cortical responses to light touch among 125 premature and full-term infants at Vanderbilt. They found that preterm infants exhibited decreased responses to light touch when they were discharged from the NICU compared to full-term infants and that the decreases were greatest among the most premature.

However, when these NICU babies were given more supportive touch experiences, including skin-to-skin care and breastfeeding, their brains responded more strongly to light touch.

Promoting optimal development and function may help keep these newborns’ brains on track to establish the sensory building blocks of cognition, behavior, and communication, the researchers concluded.

The study was conducted by an international research team from Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, Monroe Carell’s Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee, and Lausanne University in Switzerland.

Source: Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Kids of Older Moms May Do Better in Psychosocial Areas

New research from Denmark finds that waiting to have babies can be a good strategy for older women as their children have less behavioral, social, and emotional problems.

Nevertheless, the widespread recommendation not to have children too late also has validity. Issues such as declining fertility and health risks during pregnancy and while giving birth are associated with advanced maternal age.

“However, when estimating the consequences of the rising maternal age it’s important to consider both the physical and psychosocial pros and cons,” said Dr. Dion Sommer from Aarhus BSS.

Previous research has indicated that a higher maternal age is associated with increased psychosocial well-being during the pregnancy and the early days after the child is born.

In the new study, published in European Journal of Developmental Psychology, investigators determined that the advantages for the older mothers and their children extend all the way into the children’s school age, but decline before age 15.

Researchers discovered several factors influence 21st Century women to have children later in life. One reason is that we live longer, women have more educational and career opportunities, and contraception has improved.

Today, the average pregnancy age is 30.9 years. This also means that most children today are born when their mother is over 30 years old. Moreover, the proportion of children whose mother was over 40 years old when they were born has quadrupled compared to 1985.

Older mothers are at greater risk of experiencing complications during pregnancy and while giving birth than younger mothers. They are at greater risk of having a miscarriage, giving birth prematurely, and having children with deformities.

On the other hand, studies show that older women thrive better during the first part of motherhood. They worry less during the pregnancy, are more positive about becoming parents, and generally have a more positive attitude towards their children.

Previous studies that have tracked children up until their school age indicate that children with older mothers — regardless of their parents’ background, education, and finances — have a better language and have fewer behavioral, social, and emotional problems.

In the new study, investigators tracked children of school age and found that children with older mothers had fewer behavioral, social, and emotional problems at age seven and 11, but not at age 15.

Researchers believe the reason is that older mothers have more stable relationships, are more educated, and have obtained better access to material resources.

However, investigators wanted to look at the significance of age when these factors are removed from the equation. In such analyses, age can be interpreted as an indicator of psychological maturity.

“We know that people become more mentally flexible with age, are more tolerant of other people, and thrive better emotionally themselves. That’s why psychological maturity may explain why older mothers do not scold and physically discipline their children as much,” Sommer said.

“This style of parenting can thereby contribute to a positive psychosocial environment which affects the children’s upbringing,” he said.

Source: Aarhus University

Relationship Strategies for Parents of Autistic Children

Maintaining relationship quality is a challenging task for many parents. The task becomes more daunting for couples who have a child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

A new study looks at the daily experiences of parents of ASD children to provide a more detailed picture of the strengths and vulnerabilities couples may face.

“I think we can use these findings to develop more effective therapies and strategies to address potential challenges in couple relationships for parents of children with ASD,” said Dr. Sigan Hartley, lead author of the new study.

Previous findings have shown that, on average, couples with a child with ASD have higher risks of divorce and lower satisfaction with their marriages when compared to couples with a typically developing child.

“What has been missing is research that really gets at the details of what is actually happening in the day-to-day lives of these couples,” said Hartley, a Waisman Center researcher and 100 Women Chair in Human Ecology at University of Wisconsin, Madison.

To fill in this gap in the research, Hartley and her colleagues examined the daily experiences of 174 couples who have a child with ASD and 179 couples with a typically developing child.

Each couple kept separate “daily diaries” for two weeks, and recorded information like how much time they spent with their partners, how supported they felt, how close they felt to their partners, and the positive or negative interactions they had with them.

“These measures really let us understand how couple relationships are being altered for parents of children with ASD,” said Hartley.

As presented in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, researchers found a combination of vulnerabilities and strengths.

Couples parenting a child with ASD reported spending an average of 21 fewer minutes per day with their partners compared to couples with a typically developing child.

That may not sound like a lot of time, but “those 21 minutes add up over weeks and months to almost 128 fewer hours spent together over a year,” says Hartley.

Spending less time together could account for why parents of children with ASD reported feeling less closeness to their partners than those raising typically developing children.

The ASD group of parents also reported fewer positive interactions, such as sharing jokes, having a meaningful conversation, or being intimate.

“Parents of children with ASD may have more demands on their time,” said Hartley. “They may have to navigate therapy sessions or manage special education or interventions.”

On the other hand, parents of a child with ASD showed no increase in negative interactions, like critical comments or avoiding their partner, when compared to couples with a typically developing child.

These couples also felt as supported by their partners as couples with typically developing children.

“These are important relationship strengths that couples who are parenting a child with ASD can build on,” Hartley said. Finding ways to strengthen their couple dynamics can help their children as well.

“Just like any child, a child with ASD affects, and is affected by, the entire family,” said Hartley.

“Developing therapies or strategies that help parents thrive and keep their relationships strong is critical for the long-term success of children.”

Source: University of Wisconsin

Families Face Long Waits for Developmental Pediatricians

Developmental pediatricians are specifically trained to treat children with developmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorders (ASD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), conduct disorders, or cerebral palsy.

And while these conditions are quite common — an estimated one in six children in the United States has a development disorder — there are only 1,000 developmental pediatricians in the country.

In fact, a new study at Rutgers University finds that the wait time to see one of these specialists is particularly lengthy — averaging between five and six months — further delaying the start of intervention strategies designed to treat the young patients’ behavioral, emotional, social, and/or educational struggles.

In addition, the researchers found that there is an insufficient number of programs that offer accommodations for non-English speaking families.

“Relative to the number of children who would benefit from seeing a developmental pediatrician, the number of specialized physicians in the field is relatively few,” said Manuel Jimenez, M.D., M.S., assistant professor of pediatrics, and family medicine and community health at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, who led the study.

“This has the potential to limit access to rigorous diagnostic evaluations which in turn can ensure access to specialized services and therapies. Given that individuals with limited English proficiency often have difficulty navigating the health care system, we were especially interested to see if there would be differences when we called in English versus Spanish.”

After finding no documented evidence on the subject, the researchers first investigated the barriers to obtaining an appointment for an initial evaluation. Some of the researchers, who were posing as “mystery shoppers,” made phone calls to request an appointment at specialized developmental pediatric programs associated with children’s hospitals across the country.

Of the 140 unique programs that were called, 75 provided a wait time with an average of nearly five and a half months. Among these, 62 were reached in Spanish within a 24-hour period of the initial call. Only 55 percent offered a wait time estimate and nearly one-third did not offer any Spanish-language services for the caller.

Although Jimenez said he was not particularly surprised at finding long wait times nationally, he was surprised at the number of programs that did not offer a wait time in Spanish, although a wait time had been offered in English just 24 hours prior. He was equally surprised at the lack of accommodations for families for whom English is a second language.

“Our study serves as a reminder to physicians to be mindful of the difficulty our patients experience to obtain an initial assessment including an extended waiting period and barriers to language services,” said Jimenez, who also is an attending developmental and behavioral pediatrician at PSE&G Children’s Specialized Hospital.

“For researchers and policy makers, our findings underscore the importance of evaluating different care models to leverage the strengths of professionals to ensure that children with developmental concerns reach the appropriate providers at the appropriate time.”

Jimenez emphasized that more work is needed to identify strategies that provide better access to all children who are in need of specialized services, as developmental and behavioral problems are among the most prevalent health concerns faced by children.

The findings are published in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics.

Source: Rutgers University

Mouse Study Links Vitamin D to Autism Prevention

VIDEO: https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/135858.php

A new study has found that giving vitamin D supplements to mice during pregnancy prevented autism in their offspring.

The discovery provides further evidence of the crucial role vitamin D plays in brain development, according to lead researcher Professor Darryl Eyles from the University of Queensland.

“Our study used the most widely accepted developmental model of autism in which affected mice behave abnormally and show deficits in social interaction, basic learning, and stereotyped behaviors,” Eyles said. “We found that pregnant females treated with active vitamin D in the equivalent of the first trimester of pregnancy produced offspring that did not develop these deficits.”

In human studies, researchers at the university’s Queensland Brain Institute recently found a link between pregnant women with low Vitamin D levels and the increased likelihood of having a child with autistic traits.

Sun exposure is the major source of vitamin D, but it is also found in some foods.

Dr. Wei Luan, a postdoctoral researcher involved in the study, noted vitamin D is crucial for maintaining healthy bones, but the active hormonal form of vitamin D cannot be given to pregnant women because it may affect the skeleton of the developing fetus.

“Recent funding will now allow us to determine how much cholecalciferol — the supplement form that is safe for pregnant women — is needed to achieve the same levels of active hormonal vitamin D in the bloodstream,” said Luan.

“This new information will allow us to further investigate the ideal dose and timing of vitamin D supplementation for pregnant women.”

Researchers also noted that while it was previously thought vitamin D had a protective anti-inflammatory effect during brain development, their study didn’t find this to be the case.

The study was published in Molecular Autism.

Source: University of Queensland

More Time Online Tied to Loneliness in Young Adults

A new report suggests the more time a young adult uses social media, the more likely they are to feel socially isolated.

In a national analysis, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (UPMC) scientists also found that in addition to the time spent online, the frequency of use was associated with increased social isolation.

The finding contradicts the belief that social media help to reduce social isolation among young adults. That is, social media is not a true panacea to help reduce perceived social isolation when a person lacks a sense of social belonging, true engagement with others and fulfilling relationships.

“We do not yet know which came first — the social media use or the perceived social isolation,” said senior author Elizabeth Miller, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pediatrics at Pitt and chief of the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC.

“It’s possible that young adults who initially felt socially isolated turned to social media. Or it could be that their increased use of social media somehow led to feeling isolated from the real world. It also could be a combination of both. But even if the social isolation came first, it did not seem to be alleviated by spending time online, even in purportedly social situations.”

In the past, social isolation has been independently associated with an increased risk for mortality.

“This is an important issue to study because mental health problems and social isolation are at epidemic levels among young adults,” said lead author Brian A. Primack, M.D., Ph.D., director of Pitt’s Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health.

“We are inherently social creatures, but modern life tends to compartmentalize us instead of bringing us together. While it may seem that social media presents opportunities to fill that social void, I think this study suggests that it may not be the solution people were hoping for.”

In 2014, Primack and his colleagues sampled 1,787 U.S. adults ages 19 through 32, using questionnaires to determine time and frequency of social media use by asking about the 11 most popular social media platforms. Media platforms included Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Vine, and LinkedIn.

The scientists measured participants’ perceived social isolation using a validated assessment tool called the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System.

Even when the researchers controlled for a variety of social and demographic factors, participants who used social media more than two hours a day had twice the odds for perceived social isolation than their peers who spent less than half an hour on social media each day.

And participants who visited various social media platforms 58 or more times per week had about triple the odds of perceived social isolation than those who visited fewer than nine times per week.

The researchers have several theories for how increased use of social media could fuel feelings of social isolation, including:

• social media use displaces more authentic social experiences because the more time a person spends online, the less time there is for real-world interactions;
• certain characteristics of social media facilitate feelings of being excluded, such as when one sees photos of friends having fun at an event to which they were not invited;
• exposure to highly idealized representations of peers’ lives on social media sites may elicit feelings of envy and the distorted belief that others lead happier and more successful lives.

Primack, a family medicine physician, and Miller, a pediatrician, both encourage doctors to ask patients about their social media use and counsel them in reducing that use if it seems linked to symptoms of social isolation. However, they noted, much more study is needed to understand nuances around social media use.

“People interact with each other over social media in many different ways,” said Primack, also a professor of medicine, pediatrics, and clinical and translational science at Pitt.

“In a large population-based study such as this, we report overall tendencies that may or may not apply to each individual. I don’t doubt that some people using certain platforms in specific ways may find comfort and social connectedness via social media relationships. However, the results of this study simply remind us that, on the whole, use of social media tends to be associated with increased social isolation and not decreased social isolation.”

The study is published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Source: University of Pittsburg

Too Much TV Tied to Poor Math Scores, Particularly in Low-Income Kids

Kindergartners, particularly those from low-income families, who spend more than a couple of hours per day watching television tend to score lower in tests of math and executive function, according to a new study by researchers at New York University’s (NYU) Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and Université Sainte-Anne in Nova Scotia.

Studies have shown that TV watching is linked to declines in early academic skills, but little is known about how socioeconomic status influences television viewing and child development. In the new study, the researchers looked at whether the negative relationship between watching television and school readiness varied by family income.

“Given that studies have reported that children often watch more than the recommended amount, and the current prevalence of technology such as smartphones and tablets, engaging in screen time may be more frequent now than ever before,” said lead author Andrew Ribner, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt.

The researchers analyzed data from 807 kindergartners of diverse backgrounds. Their parents reported family income, as well as the number of hours of television their children watch on a daily basis. Video game, tablet, and smartphone use were not included in the measurement.

Children were assessed using measures of math, knowledge of letters and words, and executive function — key cognitive and social-emotional competencies, including working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control, that are viewed as fundamental for school readiness.

The findings show that the number of hours of television young children watch is related to decreases in their school readiness, particularly their math skills and executive function. This association was strongest when children watched more than two hours of television.

As family incomes decreased, the link between television watching and drops in school readiness grew, meaning children from low-income families are more negatively affected by excess television. Those at or near the poverty line (an annual income of around $21,200 for a family of four) saw the largest drop in school readiness when children watched more than two hours of television.

A more modest drop was observed among middle-income families (measured as $74,200 per year for a family of four), while there was no link between school readiness and television viewing in high-income homes (measured as around $127,000 per year for a family of four).

Interestingly, while TV watching was negatively associated with math skills and executive function, a similar link was not found with letter and word knowledge. The researchers hypothesize that TV programming, especially educational programs for children, may help improve literacy among young children in ways that are not found in math.

While the study did not evaluate the type of content the children watched, nor the context of their television viewing, the researchers note that both may play a role in the findings, particularly in explaining why wealthier families seem to be protected from declines in school readiness linked to too much television.

For example, perhaps children in higher-income homes watch more educational programs and less entertainment, a finding shown in previous studies.

Furthermore, affluent parents with more time and resources may be more likely to watch television with their children, offering explanation and discussion that can promote understanding.

“Our results suggest that the circumstances that surround child screen time can influence its detrimental effects on learning outcomes,” said Dr. Caroline Fitzpatrick of Université Sainte-Anne, who is also an affiliate researcher at Concordia University and a coauthor on the study.

The findings, published in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, support current guidelines limiting screen time for young children. In 2001, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended that children over the age of two watch no more than two hours of television per day. These guidelines, updated in October 2016, now recommend that children between two and five watch no more than one hour of television.

Source: New York University

Participation in Contact Sports Increases Risk of Opioid/Heroin Use

Parents may need to take notice as a University of Michigan study suggests high school athletes who play high-contact sports (like hockey or football) are at greater risk for heroin use and nonmedical use of prescription opioids.

The study is unique as prior studies have not assessed the potential overlapping use of opioids and heroin among youth athletes, including those involved in different competitive sports.

The University of Michigan study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, focused on high-contact sports such as hockey, football, lacrosse, and wrestling where serious sport-related injuries are more likely.

Researchers examined the past-year prevalence of non-medical use of prescription opioids, heroin use and the concurrent abuse of nonprescription opioids and heroin in a sample of seniors involved in 16 different sports.

The data came from more than 21,000 students from the 2006-2014 cohorts of the Monitoring the Future study.

There were no differences found between 12th-graders who participated in at least one competitive sport and nonparticipants with respect to past-year abuse of prescription opioids, heroin use, and concurrent use of the drugs.

Most of the 16 sports analyzed were not associated with the three drug use outcomes. However, 12th-graders who participated in hockey had substantially greater odds of both past-year heroin use and concurrent use of both heroin and non-prescribed drugs.

Study leader, Philip Veliz, a research assistant professor at University of Michigan’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender explains that hockey may simply have riskier youth who are involved in the sport, or these athletes have greater access to opioids given that it is predominantly populated by white, middle-class youth.

Overall, 8.3 percent of the respondents indicated nonmedical use of nonprescription opioids and 0.9 percent reported heroin use during the past year. Roughly 0.6 percent of respondents indicated concurrent heroin and abuse of nonprescription opioids the past year.

With respect to past-year involvement in competitive sports, 69.3 percent of seniors participated in at least one competitive sport (30.4 percent, one sport only; 17.7 percent, two sports; 21.2 percent, three or more sports).

In particular, the sports with the highest percentage of participants included “other” sports (26 percent), basketball (20.2 percent), football (15.8 percent), baseball (14.5 percent), and soccer (12.9 percent).

Involvement in weightlifting and wrestling were associated with slightly higher odds of past-year nonprescription opioids, while involvement in soccer was modestly associated with lower odds of past-year nonprescription opioids, when compared to respondents who did not participate in these sports during the past-year.

Involvement in both hockey and weightlifting was significantly associated with greater odds of past-year heroin use when compared to respondents who did not participate in these two sports.

“The findings provide critical information to inform doctors and parents of the potential risks associated with participating in certain high contact sports and the need to monitor the use and misuse of prescription drugs that have high abuse potential,” Veliz said.

The study’s authors also included Carol Boyd, professor of nursing and women’s studies, and Sean Esteban McCabe, IRWG research professor.

Source: University of Michigan

Genome Database IDs 18 More Autism Genes

Researchers have identified 18 additional gene variations that appear to increase the risk of autism, according to the latest study from the Autism Speaks MSSNG project, the world’s largest autism genome sequencing program.

The research, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, involved the analysis of 5,205 whole genomes from families affected by autism. The omitted letters in MSSNG (pronounced “missing”) represent the missing information about autism that the research program seeks to deliver.

“It’s noteworthy that we’re still finding new autism genes, let alone 18 of them, after a decade of intense focus,” said study co-author Mathew Pletcher, Ph.D., Autism Speaks’ vice president for genomic discovery. “With each new gene discovery, we’re able to explain more cases of autism, each with its own set of behavioral effects and many with associated medical concerns.”

So far, research using the MSSNG genomic database has identified 61 genetic variations that affect autism risk. The researchers have linked several of these variations with additional medical conditions that often accompany autism. The goal, Pletcher said, “is to advance personalized treatments for autism by deepening our understanding of the condition’s many subtypes.”

The researchers found that many of the 18 newly identified autism genes impact the operation of a small subset of biological pathways in the brain. All of these pathways affect how brain cells develop and communicate with each other.

“In all, 80 percent of the 61 gene variations discovered through MSSNG affect biochemical pathways that have clear potential as targets for future medicines,” Pletcher said.

Increasingly, autism researchers are predicting that personalized, more effective treatments will be developed from understanding these common brain pathways and how different gene variations alter them.

“The unprecedented MSSNG database is enabling research into the many ‘autisms’ that make up the autism spectrum,” said the study’s senior investigator, Stephen Scherer, Ph.D.

For example, some of the genetic alterations found in the study occurred in families with one person severely affected by autism and others on the milder end of the spectrum, Scherer said.

“This reinforces the significant neurodiversity involved in this complex condition,” he said. “In addition, the depth of the MSSNG database allowed us to identify resilient individuals who carry autism-associated gene variations without developing autism. We believe that this, too, is an important part of the neurodiversity story.”

The findings reveal how whole genome sequencing can guide medical care today. For example, at least two of the autism-associated gene changes described in the paper were linked to an increased risk for seizures. Another was tied to an increased risk for cardiac defects, and yet another with adult diabetes.

The results show how whole genome sequencing for autism can provide additional medical guidance to individuals, families and their physicians, say the researchers.

Source: Autism Speaks

Flame-Retardant Chemicals Linked to Kids’ Behavior Problems

VIDEO: https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/135202.php

Some chemicals added to furniture, electronics, and other household items to prevent fires may have unintended developmental consequences for young children, according to a new study.

Researchers from Oregon State University found a significant relationship between social behaviors among children and their exposure to widely used flame retardants, according to Dr. Molly Kile, an environmental epidemiologist and associate professor in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences at OSU.

“When we analyzed behavior assessments and exposure levels, we observed that the children who had more exposure to certain types of the flame retardant were more likely to exhibit externalizing behaviors such as aggression, defiance, hyperactivity, inattention, and bullying,” said Kile.

“This is an intriguing finding because no one had previously studied the behavioral effects of organophosphate classes of flame retardants, which have been added to consumer products more recently.”

Flame retardants are found throughout the environment in furniture, mattresses, carpeting, electronics, vehicles, and more. The chemicals are added to the products, but are not bound in the material, which causes them to be released into indoor environments, the researchers explained.

Manufacturers began adding flame retardants in 1975 in response to new legislation in California designed to reduce flammability in common household items. The state updated its flammability standards in 2014, and now allows furniture manufacturers to meet the standards without adding flame retardant chemicals to their products, but the chemicals are still widely used and they linger in the indoor environment, according to the researchers.

The most common types of flame retardants are brominated diphenyl ethers (BDEs) and organophosphate-based flame retardants (OPFRs). OPFRs emerged as an alternative to BDEs in an effort to address some of the environmental health concerns posed by BDEs, which tend to remain in the environment for long periods, the researchers noted.

Past research has shown that both BDEs and OPFRs are linked to poorer cognitive function in children. But less is known about the relationship between the flame retardants and children’s social and emotional health, particularly during early childhood, a key developmental period for learning.

“The social skills children learn during preschool set the foundation for their success in school, and also for their social and emotional health and well-being later in life,” said Dr. Shannon Lipscomb, an associate professor and lead of the human development and family sciences program at OSU-Cascades and a co-author of the study.

For the study, the researchers recruited 92 Oregon children between the ages of three and five to wear a silicone wristband for seven days to measure exposure to flame retardants.

The wristbands, developed by Kim Anderson of the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences, have a porous surface that mimics a cell, absorbing chemicals that people are exposed to through their environment. The wristband is an easy and non-invasive way to sample children’s chemical exposure, the researchers noted.

When the wristbands were returned, Anderson screened for up to 1,200 chemicals that may accumulate.

The researchers also had parents or primary caregivers fill out questionnaires about socio-demographics and the home environment, while preschool teachers completed behavior assessments for each child.

In all, the researchers had complete data and wristband results for 69 children.

Their analysis showed that all of the children were exposed to some level of flame retardant.

Children who had higher exposure rates of OFPRs showed less responsible behavior and more aggression, defiance, hyperactivity, inattention, and bullying behaviors, according to the study’s findings.

Children with higher exposure to BDEs were seen as less assertive by their teachers.

“We detected these links between flame retardant and children’s social behaviors while controlling for differences in family demographics, home learning environments, and adversity,” Lipscomb said. “This suggests that flame retardants may have a unique effect on development apart from the effects of children’s early social experiences.”

According to the researchers, more study is needed to better understand the links between flame retardants and children’s social skill development. They said they plan to pursue funding for a new study that continues for a longer period of time and considers how other aspects of children’s lives might affect the impact of flame retardants on their development.

“The results of this research to date have shown potential impacts for child health and warrant a more thorough investigation,” Kile said.

“If scientists find strong evidence that exposure to flame retardants affects children’s behaviors, we can develop strategies that prevent these exposures and help improve children’s lives. This type of public health science is needed to figure out how to address the root causes of behavioral concerns that can affect children’s school readiness and overall well-being.”

The study was published in the journal Environmental Health.

Source: Oregon State University

Aggression Disorder May Up Risk of Substance Abuse

A new study finds that people with intermittent explosive disorder (IED) are at five times greater risk of abusing substances such as alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana than those who don’t display frequent aggressive behavior.

IED is described as a condition marked by frequent physical or verbal outbursts.

Researchers from the University of Chicago analyzed data from more than 9,200 subjects in the National Comorbidity Survey, a national survey of mental health in the United States. They found that as the severity of aggressive behavior increased, so did levels of daily and weekly substance use.

The findings suggest that a history of frequent, aggressive behavior is a risk factor for later substance abuse, and effective treatment of aggression could delay or even prevent substance abuse in young people.

Emil Coccaro, M.D., led the study, which appears in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

The research is relevant as IED affects as many as 16 million Americans, more than bipolar disorder and schizophrenia combined. It is often first diagnosed in adolescents, some of whom are as young as 11, years before substance abuse problems usually develop.

IED runs in families and is thought to have a significant genetic component, although Coccaro said people tend to treat it as a social-behavioral issue instead of as a true neurobiological disorder.

“People don’t see this as a medical problem. They think of it as simply bad behavior they have developed over the course of their lives, but it isn’t. It has significant biology and neuroscience behind it,” said Coccaro.

Previous research has implied that aggressive behavior in IED is due to the presence of other psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety or depression. But the new University of Chicago study found no such relationship.

While substance abuse, like excessive drinking, can clearly make aggressive behavior worse, the onset of IED almost always precedes the development of chronic substance abuse.

Coccaro and his team found that IED preceded substance abuse in 92.5 percent of the cases where subjects developed both disorders.

Coccaro emphasized that early psychological intervention, medication and cognitive therapy are the most effective treatments to prevent, or at least delay, substance abuse problems in adolescents diagnosed with IED.

“What you’re really treating is the emotional dysregulation that leads to aggression,” Coccaro said.

“The earlier you treat this dysregulation, the more likely you are to offset other disorders that come later down the road.”

Source: University of Chicago/EurekAlert

Instagram a Haven for Those with Depression

A new study shows that one way people suffering from depression find solace is in sharing their feelings and experiences on social media sites, especially Instagram.

The new study, from researchers at Drexel University, notes that some users view Instagram as a safe medium for sharing sensitive information about themselves and reaching out for help.

“Physical or mental health and body image concerns are stigmatized, rarely disclosed, and frequently elicit negative responses when shared with others,” according to the researchers. “We found that these disclosures, in addition to deep and detailed stories of one’s difficult experiences, attract positive social support on Instagram.”

The researchers, Andrea Forte, Ph.D., an associate professor, and Nazanin Andalibi, a doctoral candidate in Drexel’s College of Computing & Informatics, said they also observed this sort of self-disclosure and support-seeking behavior among Reddit users. One reason may be that the relative anonymity provided by “throwaway” accounts on the forum allowed users to make sensitive disclosures, ask for and receive help, the researchers noted.

Previous studies had suggested that people avoid sharing their struggles with depression, eating disorders, abuse, mental health challenges, and other sensitive issues, on social networks, such as Facebook — for much the same reason they’d tend to avoid talking about these things in person: Because of the stigma that’s attached to them.

The researchers say their study on Reddit broke new ground in understanding the use of social media in stigmatized and sensitive contexts.

It also pushed them to find how people were using other social media sites to reach out for support.

“At the same time we were studying interactions on Reddit, we were also looking at Instagram because it is one of the most heavily used social media sites and also allows pseudonymous users, in contrary to Facebook that enforces real-name policies,” Andalibi said. “And we wanted to see how people might behave differently on a more image-centric, rather than one that is driven solely by textual posts and comments.”

To investigate their theory, Forte and Andalibi examined the responses to a sample of 800 Instagram posts pulled from more than 95,000 photos tagged with “#depression” that were posted by 24,920 unique users over the course of a month.

The findings indicate that not only are people using Instagram to make sensitive disclosures, but they are also getting mostly positive support from the people who respond to the posts, and little in the way of negative or aggressive comments.

The researchers set out to understand the ways that Instagrammers use pictures, captions, and comments to signal this need to connect. Gathering posts with the “#depression” tag gave them a range of posts in which people were expressing their feelings, talking about their struggles and reaching out for support — both in words and pictures.

To explore the correlation between posts and the responses — comments and “likes” — they receive, Forte and Andalibi organized them into categories based on the type of disclosures in the text and captions, ranging from disclosures seeking some sort of social interaction to those expressing emotion.

They also developed a method for coding the content of images and categorized the types of messages they were expressing, such as concerns about looks, relationship problems, illness, suicidal thoughts, and pictures of food and beverage that were often used to talk about eating disorders.

After gaining an understanding of the general categories of posts that were tagged “#depression” Forte and Andalibi undertook a similar process to categorize the comments on the posts. Then, by using a statistical analysis method, they were able to discover what sorts of responses were most often elicited from particular types of posts.

According to the study, 41 percent of the posts that the researchers examined brought on comments expressing positive social support. They found that “those who value feedback, engage in support seeking, or disclose sensitive concerns, do receive significantly more feedback.”

For example, they noted that posts seeking support and engagement about eating disorders, self-appearance, and relationships are more likely to receive supportive comments — not just “likes” — than the same type of post that is not worded in a way that is seeking support or social engagement. These posts were also more likely to receive comments offering instrumental support, such as how and where to get help, the researchers noted.

“Those in distress or with stigmatized identities often need to express themselves and tell their stories, not only to potentially receive support or find similar others, but also to feel they are expressing themselves candidly, to make sense of their experiences, and to solidify their identities,” the researchers write in the study.

They noticed that the people who were willing to tell the story of their suffering — rather than just posting a picture or implying that they have a problem — seemed to get more supportive comments on their posts, messages like “I know how that feels,” “I have been there,” or “You are strong and beautiful.”

According to the research, people whose posts disclosed an illness received more than twice as many supportive comments as the ones who did not specifically note that they had an illness.

Forte and Andalibi note that psychologists sometimes use visual imagery to help their patients express feelings and experiences that are difficult to put into words. Confirming that images on Instagram can serve a similar function in online social interactions is an important discovery, they add. It means that there are specific corners of social media where people are turning to ask for help — and this is valuable information for professional caregivers who seek to help the suffering, they said.

“The social risks associated with negative disclosures are real, and if people expose themselves to such risk at particularly vulnerable moments, they likely expect some important benefits from doing so,” they said. “Finding social support is critical, and by sharing difficult experiences and emotions, people signal this need to others.”

Another observation the researchers made is that users who post about behaviors such as harming themselves or struggling with an eating disorder tend to receive comments that offer empathetic support and discourage the unhealthy behavior.

For instance, someone who posts about their self-harming behaviors is equally likely to be greeted with comments such as, “I know how it is, it helps to hurt myself too” or “Please don’t hurt yourself. You are strong and you can get through this.” These are surprising observations given the fact that these disclosures could make the users targets for bullying among other negative commentary, according to the researchers.

“Self-harm is a way of coping with extreme negative feelings and gaining control that many keep as a secret, and find isolating. It is possible that finding others who engage or used to engage in the same behavior may be comforting for some,” the researchers said. “Our findings suggest that both kinds of reactions to self-harm disclosures are significant, and shed light on the nuances of these expressions.”

Similarly, users who disclosed eating disorders received comments that discouraged the behavior, offered constructive support, and reinforced a positive self-image, for example, “Please don’t fast or look for any tips. You are beautiful the way you are.”

It is important to note that eating disorder-related disclosures did not receive a significant number of comments that supported the harmful behavior, the researchers pointed out.

“Our findings complicate the concerns and the popular narrative that such online disclosures might encourage eating disorders or are inherently problematic,” Andalibi said.

“Statistically speaking, our findings suggest that when people share content about eating disorders, they do not receive many comments supportive of pro-disease behavior. Is Instagram used as a pro-eating disorder or a pro-self-harm community? We do not know yet. With this study, we are the first to detail the nuances of interactions around these sensitive disclosures.

This is a necessary first step to understanding the impact of these interactions on Instagrammers. How posters perceive these comments, and how these comments and interactions influence their wellbeing and behavior is an important area for further research.”

Instagram recently rolled out a suicide prevention tool that allows users to alert operators when they think someone might be in serious trouble. The operators are able to provide help or connect users with the information they need to find it.

While this is a step in the right direction, it is only the first of many that need to be taken to truly reach these communities of users, Andalibi said.

“Social media platforms like Instagram that people have adopted to connect with ‘similar others’ to share their difficult experiences, and seek and provide support, should explore ways to facilitate safe and supportive connections,” Andalibi said. “Rather than diverting people away from these platforms, or making design decisions that would further stigmatize sensitive disclosures, they should work to foster these communities of support that are arising organically on their platform.”

For Forte and Andalibi, this research represents another step toward more fully understanding how social media is becoming interwoven into the ways people interact and express themselves, particularly in socially stigmatized or otherwise sensitive contexts. While in some ways, it is means for people turn away from external expression and communication with others, by better understanding how people use social networking sites, it can actually uncover very nuanced forms of communication that would not happen elsewhere, they said.

“It is very important to figure out what the needs of certain marginalized or stigmatized populations are, and how we could be more inclusive and considerate when we design social media,” Andalibi said. “The period of thinking online platforms are not ‘real-life’ has passed, and these spaces can have meaningful impact on people’s lives in many ways, so we need to focus on design that can foster support and reduce abuse.”

They suggest that future research could continue to look at the effects of the interactions that result from the sensitive disclosures to figure out if the help and support being offered is having an impact.

Andalibi presented the research at the Association for Computing Machinery’s International Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing in February 2017.

Source: Drexel University

Many Anorexics Need Extended Care for Brain Function

New research discovers that even after weeks of treatment and weight gain, anorexic teenagers need additional time to regain normal brain function.

Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus said persistent brain alteration puts teen at risk for possible relapse.

In the study, investigators examined 21 female adolescents before and after treatment for anorexia and found that their brains still had an elevated reward system compared to 21 participants without the eating disorder.

“That means they are not cured,” said Guido Frank, M.D., senior author of the study and associate professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

“This disease fundamentally changes the brain response to stimuli in our environment. The brain has to normalize and that takes time.”

The research has been published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Brain scans of anorexia nervosa patients have implicated central reward circuits that govern appetite and food intake in the disease. This study showed that the reward system was elevated when the patients were underweight and remained so once weight was restored.

The neurotransmitter dopamine might be the key, researchers said.

Dopamine mediates reward learning and is suspected of playing a major role in the pathology of anorexia nervosa. Animal studies have shown that food restriction or weight loss enhances dopamine response to rewards.

With that in mind, Frank, an expert in eating disorders, and his colleagues wanted to see if this heightened brain activity would normalize once the patient regained weight.

In the study, adolescent girls who were between 15 and 16 years old underwent a series of reward-learning taste tests while their brains were being scanned.

The results showed that reward responses were higher in adolescents with anorexia nervosa than in those without it. This normalized somewhat after weight gain but still remained elevated.

At the same time, the study showed that those with anorexia had widespread changes to parts of the brain like the insula, which processes taste along with a number of other functions including body self-awareness.

The more severely altered the brain, the harder it was to treat the illness, or in other words, the more severely altered the brain, the more difficult it was for the patients to gain weight in treatment.

“Generalized sensitization of brain reward responsiveness may last long into recovery,” the study said. “Whether individuals with anorexia nervosa have a genetic predisposition for such sensitization requires further study.”

Frank said more studies are also needed to determine if the continued elevated brain response is due to a heightened dopamine reaction to starvation and whether it signals a severe form of anorexia among adolescents that is more resistant to treatment.

In either case, Frank said the biological markers discovered here could be used to help determine the likelihood of treatment success. They could also point the way toward using drugs that target the dopamine reward system.

“Anorexia nervosa is hard to treat. It is the third most common chronic illness among teenage girls with a mortality rate 12 times higher than the death rate for all causes of death for females 15-24 years old,” Frank said.

“But with studies like this we are learning more and more about what is actually happening in the brain. And if we understand the system, we can develop better strategies to treat the disease.”

Source: University of Colorado/EurekAlert

Living With Kids Means Less Sleep for Women, But Not Men

A new study confirms what many women already know: They are sleep deprived, especially if there are children in the house.

Unlike men, a good night’s sleep for women is affected by having children in the house, according to the study, which will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 69th Annual Meeting in Boston, April 22 to 28, 2017.

“I think these findings may bolster those women who say they feel exhausted,” said study author Kelly Sullivan, Ph.D., of Southern University in Statesboro, Ga., and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. “Our study found not only are they not sleeping long enough, they also report feeling tired throughout the day.”

For the study, researchers examined data from a nationwide telephone survey of 5,805 people. Participants were asked how long they slept, with seven to nine hours a day considered optimum and less than six hours considered insufficient. They were also asked how many days they felt tired in the past month.

Researchers looked at age, race, education, marital status, number of children in the household, income, body mass index, exercise, employment, and snoring as possible factors linked to sleep deprivation.

Among the 2,908 women aged 45 years and younger in the study, researchers found the only factor associated with getting enough sleep was having children in the house, with each child increasing the odds of insufficient sleep by nearly 50 percent.

For women under 45, 48 percent of women with children reported getting at least seven hours of sleep, compared to 62 percent of women without children, according to the study’s findings.

No other factors — including exercise, marital status, and education — were linked to how long younger women slept, the researchers noted.

The study also found that not only was living with children associated with how long younger women slept, but also how often they felt tired. Younger women with children reported feeling tired 14 days a month, on average, compared to 11 days for younger women without children in the household, the study discovered.

It also found that having children in the house was not linked to how long men slept.

“Getting enough sleep is a key component of overall health and can impact the heart, mind, and weight,” said Sullivan. “It’s important to learn what is keeping people from getting the rest they need so we can help them work toward better health.”

Source: The American Academy of Neurology